President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Christmas Speech

Ronald Reagan’s Christmas address of 1981 takes us back to an America of foundational values. It was a time both of great challenges and of real hope for a brighter future for all of mankind. It was a time when American Exceptionalism could achieve and overcome anything. We had a great leader we could believe in and support with pride.

Only portions of Reagan’s 1981 Christmas Speech appear below. It is suggested that the reader watch and listen to President Reagan give the entire speech. One can also read the entire speech.

At this special time of year, we all renew our sense of wonder in recalling the story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem, nearly 2,000 year ago.

Some celebrate Christmas as the birthday of a great and good philosopher and teacher. Others of us believe in the divinity of the child born in Bethlehem, that he was and is the promised Prince of Peace. Yes, we've questioned why he who could perform miracles chose to come among us as a helpless babe, but maybe that was his first miracle, his first great lesson that we should learn to care for one another.

Tonight, in millions of American homes, the glow of the Christmas tree is a reflection of the love Jesus taught us. Like the shepherds and wise men of that first Christmas, we Americans have always tried to follow a higher light, a star, if you will. At lonely campfire vigils along the frontier, in the darkest days of the Great Depression, through war and peace, the twin beacons of faith and freedom have brightened the American sky. At times our footsteps may have faltered, but trusting in God's help, we've never lost our way.

Just across the way from the White House stand the two great emblems of the holiday season: a Menorah, symbolizing the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, and the National Christmas Tree, a beautiful towering blue spruce from Pennsylvania. Like the National Christmas Tree, our country is a living, growing thing planted in rich American soil. Only our devoted care can bring it to full flower. So, let this holiday season be for us a time of rededication.

The World knew trouble then as it does now. The United States was just beginning to dig out of the economic malaise of the 1970s. Freedom was under assault with military oppression being used by the Polish government against its own people. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had started two years previously.

Even as we rejoice, however, let us remember that for some Americans, this will not be as happy a Christmas as it should be. I know a little of what they feel. I remember one Christmas Eve during the Great Depression, my father opening what he thought was a Christmas greeting. It was a notice that he no longer had a job.

Over the past year, we've begun the long, hard work of economic recovery. Our goal is an America in which every citizen who needs and wants a job can get a job. Our program for recovery has only been in place for 12 weeks now, but it is beginning to work. With your help and prayers, it will succeed. We're winning the battle against inflation, runaway government spending and taxation, and that victory will mean more economic growth, more jobs, and more opportunity for all Americans.

A few months before he took up residence in this house, one of my predecessors, John Kennedy, tried to sum up the temper of the times with a quote from an author closely tied to Christmas, Charles Dickens. We were living, he said, in the best of times and the worst of times. Well, in some ways that's even more true today. The world is full of peril, as well as promise. Too many of its people, even now, live in the shadow of want and tyranny.

As I speak to you tonight, the fate of a proud and ancient nation hangs in the balance. For a thousand years, Christmas has been celebrated in Poland, a land of deep religious faith, but this Christmas brings little joy to the courageous Polish people. They have been betrayed by their own government.

The men who rule them and their totalitarian allies fear the very freedom that the Polish people cherish. They have answered the stirrings of liberty with brute force, killings, mass arrests, and the setting up of concentration camps. Lech Walesa and other Solidarity leaders are imprisoned, their fate unknown. Factories, mines, universities, and homes have been assaulted.

Ronald Reagan pursued peace on Earth and extended goodwill to all of mankind. He confronted the Soviet Union, brought down the Berlin Wall, and helped to free 10s of millions of people who had been held in slavery behind the Iron Curtain of the Evil Empire. Liberty became not only a goal but also a reality in nation after nation.

It now falls upon us to envision and to create a brighter future for the United States of America and for all of mankind. We must remain confident that with hard work and courageous leadership better days will again soon be with us.

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You've made some mistakes, sir. The fifth paragraph of the speech is clearly yours, not Reagan's, and was intended to be commentary after the speech. Check the one that starts with "The World knew trouble then as it does now. The United States was just beginning to dig out of the economic malaise of the 1970s."

Also, the last paragraphs you wrote should probably be indented to match the first paragraphs and clearly reflect that they are not part of Reagan's speech. I don't doubt that this is an honest mistake, and any earnest reader would recognize this fact.

"It now falls upon us to envision and to create a brighter future for the United States of America and for all of mankind. We must remain confident that with hard work and courageous leadership better days will again soon be with us."

I agree with you on that point. We have just such a leader who with courageous leadership bring us better days.

That leader is Obama and he will be leading us toward that brighter future until 2016....

I am having the same problem with ball point pens. Even the brand new ones don't seem to like paper that requires writing.

I see this as some kind of corporate plot for us to buy more pens, or to keep us from returning important documents to the source. Is it a Liberal plot?

Example: I needed to send some additional money to the IRS. There was all the retirement and funds transfers that left me with a mess to go through. I really didn't want to deal with it when April 15 rolled around. I filed an extension, and when the final deadline for that approached, and I discovered I was wrong, I knew that I needed to pay interest and penalties. With the help of an IRS agent, I gave it my best shot. Turned out both of us were wrong, and they sent me a letter asking for more money.

Yes, even though I used TuboTax to calculate my taxes, which took me through forms I had never used before, I was greatly relieved that those passed scrutiny. I did not object to paying the additional charges.

I want to pay exactly what I owe in taxes. Unlike, the extreme crowd, I don't see it as the government confiscating my money. I see it as my patriotic duty to support our country. Sure, I object to how some of that money is spent, like giving May free money, but until that gets fixed, we need to to what we need to do.

Aside: May loves the F-22. If he could dedicate exactly how his tax money would be spent, would he be willing to pay for an F-22 or even for the maintenance of one after one flight? You can bet, May believes someone else should pay that bill..........

Some where there has to be one of those BIC pens from the sixties. There has never been a pen as good as those. They must have lost money building such a fine tool. If you dug one out of an old landfill I would bet on it before I would one of these dad gummed 2011 pens in my desk.

"Only portions of Reagan’s 1981 Christmas Speech appear below."
May, that's like only portions of biblical verses you attempt to cherry pick when referencing. I've caught you not even using an entire line only a portion. What a poor pathetic little man you are.

Yes Obviousman, you would pay a 23% sales tax on a new BIC pen or any other new goods sold at retail,under a consumption based tax such as the Fair Tax.Under the current tax code,every consumer pays for costs hidden inside retail prices to cover the very stupid tax laws. Also,wages and benefits are often depressed because of them, and American companies are at a severe price disadvantage with foreign competitors because of this The FairTax eliminates these hidden tax costs and among other advantages it allows retail prices to drop in their absence. Learn , listen, read, grasshopper.......

Free ink roller pens have thinner ink than traditional ball point pens. That is why you think that pens wrote better and easier in the "good old days". Many ball point pens on the market today, use thicker ink to prevent leaking. However you can still find pens that write smoothly and easily , but will leak. If you want a pen that writes really good, I suggest the Triumph series of BIC pens.

"God bless us every one!" -- YOUR character in that story is Ebenezer Scrooge... except that you are not seeking, nor will you ever find... redemption.

From Wikipedia:
"After his nephew leaves, two charitable men come in and ask Scrooge if he is willing to help them raise a fund to help the poor, but Scrooge comments that he pays taxes for the poor. The two charitable men comment that many would rather die than go to a government funded workhouse. To which Scrooge responds: "If they'd rather die then perhaps they had better do so and decrease the surplus population" and angrily dismisses them.

"Scrooge has only disgust for the poor, thinking the world would be better off without them, "decreasing the surplus population," and praise for the Victorian-era workhouses. He has a particular distaste for the merriment of Christmas; his single act of kindness is to give his clerk, Bob Cratchit, the day off with pay. Done more as a result of social mores than kindness, Scrooge sees the practice akin to having his pocket picked on an annual basis."

I do think that all Republicans with off-shore bank accounts-- should be chained to an uncomfortable chair-- and forced to watch "A Christmas Carol" every year.

Top Cat said: .Under the current tax code,every consumer pays for costs hidden inside retail prices to cover the very stupid tax laws. Also,wages and benefits are often depressed because of them, and American companies are at a severe price disadvantage with foreign competitors because of this The FairTax eliminates these hidden tax costs and among other advantages it allows retail prices to drop in their absence.

Please explain how retailers hide taxes in retail pricing. Which taxes are hidden and why is it done? Please give specifics, A LOT OF DETAIL, and links to back all of this up.

Under the current tax code, companies pay the "corporate tax". Currently ,the USA has the highest corporate tax in the world. Corporations don't pay taxes, corporate taxes are merely incorporated into the cost of them doing business. If you raise the corporate tax, companies simply raise the cost of their product to cover these costs. The consumer ends up making up the difference.Another factor is the huge cost of tax compliance. Under the current tax code, even the IRS is confused. The Fair Tax simplifies the tax compliance burden greatly.

Under the Fair Tax , the corporate tax is zero. This also would make businesses want to return to the USA. Zero corporate taxes also leaves more money for wages and salaries and will create jobs.

Do you really think a link is needed to explain this very basic concept?

Well, well, well, I see, much to my surprise, that most of the poster’s on today’s comment section (except for a few old curmudgeons) are exercising great restraint and being civil for a change. Suppose it will continue?

TC said: Under the Fair Tax , the corporate tax is zero. This also would make businesses want to return to the USA. Zero corporate taxes also leaves more money for wages and salaries and will create jobs.
Do you really think a link is needed to explain this very basic concept?

Zero corporate taxes would leave more money for corporate perks. Whatever makes you think they would use that money for wages and salaries? Corporate America is NOT full of saints by a long shot.

Let's see now the "Fair Tax" is supposed to be 23% and I provided documentation to show effectively it is more like 30%. What about sales taxes that are charged in 43 states? So if the city-state sales tax is say 8%, now you would be paying 38%.

How about the states that have income taxes?

Store owners spend a lot of effort being the tax collector for the states, and now they are supposed to be the tax collector for the Federal Government. Who is going to keep them honest? When a store owner purchases goods for re-sale, do they pay a 23% tax? If they are exempt, what is keeping everyone from being a "store owner"

When you buy a house is that taxable as consumption? One of the things making the purchase of a house attractive is the mortgage interest deduction. Obviously, that would go away. What would the "Fair Tax" do to the housing market?

On the surface the "Fair Tax" may appear attractive, but when you dig into the details, there are major problems.

There are better alternatives to the "Fair Tax", and the "Flat Tax" isn't one of them.

Unless you live under a rock, you should know that the USA has the highest corporate tax in the world at 35%. Most industrialized nations have corporate taxes somewhere between 20-30%. Do you think the USA is at a disadvantage with a 35% corporate tax? I would consider good jobs in management and labor to be a "corporate perk". Being unemployed is a not a good perk.